Hi there,

Welcome back to another week of Brand Matters. We apologise for missing last week! It's our first week we have missed in the newsletter. But we have something exciting brewing over the next couple of weeks which we are excited to share with you.

This week, we're diving into the multi-screen sports revolution—why the game is now background music, the group chat is the new stadium, and most brands are still buying attention that doesn't exist anymore.

Also in today's issue:

• Ad of the Week: Walmart turns Walton Goggins into the Grinch for Black Friday—and somehow it works

• Reformed Characters refuses to whisper in the alcohol-free category with metallic cans and actual personality

• Unilever doubles down on sports marketing while moving beyond broadcast

• MLB strikes major media deals with Netflix, NBC & ESPN—live sports distribution just shifted

• Gen Z is reshaping holiday marketing (and brands are scrambling to keep up)

Let's get started.

The Attention Economy

I watch a lot of sports. Like, a lot.

Every weekend, multiple games across multiple screens. Fantasy apps running. Podcasts queued up. WhatsApp groups firing off commentary faster than the actual commentators. And my wife—bless her—will walk past and say, "You're not even watching it," and she's not entirely wrong.

The game is on. I'm watching. But I'm also trading players in different fantasy leagues, arguing with mates about whether the ref has money on the other team, refreshing live stats because my captain pick is killing me, and checking odds on the next try scorer because why not.

I'm just as excited about the banter with the boys as I am about the game itself. Maybe more. The match is the anchor, but the experience is everything happening around it—the group chat roasting someone's terrible chat, the betting slip that looked smart 10 minutes ago and catastrophic now, the coordinated cheer when a call goes against the Roosters.

This isn't me being distracted. This is how watching works now. And I'm not alone. Only 19% of 18–34s watch an entire game at home anymore. 43% of Gen Z actively scroll social during live play. The game happens on one screen. The experience happens across four.

Gaming Figured This Out Years Ago

Sports didn't invent this. Gaming did.

Twitch made watching someone else play into its own entertainment category years before sports caught up. Streamers like iShowSpeed pull 5-10 million viewers watching him react to football matches—they're not there for tactical analysis, they're there for his reaction, the chat's reaction, the community building a shared experience in real time.

That seems insane until you realize it's not. Gaming didn't invent multi-screen watching—Twitch just productized what LAN parties already knew. Sports fans have been doing this in pubs for decades. The only thing that changed is now the pub fits in your pocket, and it's full of your actual friends instead of strangers who support the wrong team.

iShowSpeed's viewers aren't watching football—they're watching a community watch football. That's the format. That's what the WhatsApp group is. That's what fantasy leagues create. That's what betting apps amplify.

And sports finally caught up.

The WhatsApp Group Is The New Stadium

Here's what actually happens during a match now:

Someone scores. You see it on the TV—maybe. More likely, you see it in the group chat first because someone's stream is ahead, or they've screen-grabbed it with a caption that's already funnier than anything the commentators will say. That becomes the take. The narrative is set before the replay even finishes.

Your mate posts his betting slip, he called it, he's the oracle, he's insufferable for the next 20 minutes. Someone else posts their fantasy score tanking because their captain got subbed off at halftime. The chat moves faster than the commentary. Goals happen, and you're watching the group chat react more than you're watching the actual goal.

You're watching alone in your living room, but you're experiencing it together—reacting to the same moments at the same microsecond, building a shared narrative that's half tactical analysis, half shitposting.

That's the product now. The broadcast is just the synchronization mechanism.

Betting Changed Everything

Sports betting is projected to hit $145 billion by 2029, but that number doesn't capture what actually changed.

What changed is speed. Wagers that resolve in seconds. Next corner. Next throw-in. Next touch by a specific player. Every possession is a bet you can place and win or lose before the next ad break.

When DraftKings and FanDuel became Official Sports Betting Partners with the NFL, they didn't just buy logos—they secured the pipes. Odds and props now live natively inside NFL.com, the NFL App, RedZone. FanDuel commands roughly 43% U.S. market share. DraftKings has 4.8 million average monthly paying customers who are betting during games, not just on them.

This isn't sponsorship. This is infrastructure. They're not interrupting the experience—they are the experience for millions of fans.

Fantasy works the same way. Every touch, every tackle, every throw matters because it's your captain, your bench decision, your trade that looked genius on Friday and catastrophic by Sunday. You're not watching a match, you're managing a portfolio that updates in real time. And every decision you made three days ago is being judged by your mates in the group chat right now.

The fantasy market is tracking toward $67-100 billion by 2030. These platforms didn't crack the code by accident, they're designed to exploit the exact cognitive triggers that keep you refreshing, checking, trading. The dopamine hit of watching your score tick up. The loss aversion of watching your rank drop. The social proof of seeing your mates ahead of you in the league.

It works because it makes every moment matter to you personally. Not to your team. To you.

What Brands Still Don't Get

Most brands are still buying the game. They should be buying the group chat.

Sponsorship spending is tracking toward $190 billion by 2030, but most of it is being spent on a viewing behavior that doesn't exist anymore. The 30-second spot during the big game. The logo on the pitch. The halftime activation that everyone ignores while they're checking their phone.

Spotify × FC Barcelona, 2022: 350 million "fans" on paper. Only 1% had usable data. The deal dropped from €400M to €280M because the data they paid for didn't exist. Big numbers aren't the same as meaningful ones.

In February 2023, Rihanna's Super Bowl halftime show happened. Within 90 seconds, Fenty Beauty had new creative live across social featuring the exact makeup she wore. Not the next day. Not after the game. During the game. By the time the third quarter started, the conversation had moved on. But Fenty was already in it.

That's what operating at group chat speed actually looks like.

Meanwhile, some brand paid $7 million for a 30-second spot that aired, got some laughs on Twitter, and was forgotten by Monday. Fenty spent a fraction of that and owned the actual moment.

DraftKings and FanDuel figured this out years ago. They're not interrupting the broadcast with ads—they're inside NFL.com, inside the app, inside RedZone. They're not sponsors. They're infrastructure. You can't watch the game without seeing their odds because they secured the pipes.

Most brands are still buying the billboard. The smart ones are buying the road.

What This Actually Means

The group chat moves faster than the broadcast. The betting app updates before the replay finishes. The fantasy score changes while you're still processing what just happened.

If you're a brand, you have two choices:

Build for the speed of the group chat—which means pre-approved creative, modular systems, and the ability to concept, approve, and publish in under 10 minutes during live play. It means showing up in the WhatsApp group, not the broadcast. It means designing for four screens, not one.

Or keep buying the broadcast and wonder why no one remembers you.

The game is background music now. The experience is everything happening around it. Design for that, or disappear into it.

Ad of the Week

Walmart

Goggins sat in a makeup chair for 2.5 hours to become the Grinch for a Walmart Black Friday ad. The result? Weirdly good.

The spot has Mindy Lou Who climbing up Mt. Crumpit to recruit the Grinch for Black Friday deals. He's annoyed (shocking), gets stuck in a chimney, steps on Lego, but eventually helps her decorate WhoKnewVille. At one point he says "Prepare to go viral. I minored in communications" and you can tell Goggins is having way too much fun.

People were already joking online that Goggins looks like the Grinch. Walmart saw the memes and just... did it. That's the whole play. And it worked because Goggins commits fully—he's doing a snarky Jim Carrey impression while clearly enjoying how ridiculous this is.

It's running everywhere: YouTube masthead, Times Square takeover (the Grinch's furry hands across multiple billboards), NFL spots. Full campaign treatment for what's basically a very expensive joke.

Most holiday retail ads beg you to care. This one knows it's absurd and leans into it. That's the difference.

Brand Watch

Reformed Characters

Reformed Characters is what happens when an alcohol-free brand refuses to whisper.

Most non-alcoholic drinks look like they're apologizing for existing—beige cans, botanical watercolors, quiet wellness energy. Reformed Characters showed up to the category with metallic packaging, bold patterns, and a tagline that says "Unapologetically Alcohol Free."

Greatergood built the entire brand from scratch: naming, strategy, identity, packaging, recipe development, DTC launch. The insight is sharp: this is for people who are the party, just not tonight. The friend who doesn't need tequila to make questionable decisions. Sober but not serious.

Each can is a character: Herbaceous. Dark & Decadent. Bittersweet. Not flavor profiles—personalities. Packaging that says "Sure, I'm sober. But I'm still fun at brunch."

The result? Major grocers and international distributors are already interested. Category disruption with actual shelf swagger.

Why it works: They designed for the vibe, not the category. Most brands in this space are trying to be forgettable. Reformed Characters wants to start trouble.

Lento Vibes

A bit of random inspo from around the grounds:

• Timothée Chalamet Didn’t Mean to Drag Marketers, But He Did: His promo for Marty Supreme spoofs a marketing meeting and shines a light on the fact that ~70 % of marketers lack formal training. 👉 Read the story

• Unilever Pushes Sports Marketing Beyond Broadcast: The CPG giant has nearly doubled its U.S. sports marketing spend and is shifting from one-to-many broadcast to many-to-many digital and social engagement. 👉 See how it works

• TikTok Lets Users Reduce AI-Generated Content: TikTok is testing a toggle that gives users control over how much AI-generated content appears in their feeds—responding to growing fatigue. 👉 Explore the update

• Jaguar Rebrand — One Year On: A full year after its radical identity overhaul (new wordmark, palette, “copy nothing” ethos), Jaguar reflects on the impact and reaction. 👉 Read the follow-up

• Major League Baseball’s Big Media Move: MLB has struck three-year media-rights deals with Netflix, NBCUniversal & ESPN—a major shift in how live sports are distributed. MLB.com👉 Read the announcement

• Gen Z Is Reshaping Holiday Marketing: Gen Z’s shopping habits—heavy on social, influencer discovery, and AI-driven search—are forcing brands to rethink holiday campaigns. 👉 See what brands can do